The Aces of Cooking: Blanching - What Does It Mean?

Blanching is to process raw materials with steam, hot water or boiling water. The purpose of this procedure is to destroy enzymes, destroy microorganisms and remove air from the tissues.

Sometimes vegetables and greens just need to blanch. This will eliminate the specific odor and bitterness of the product. The procedure is carried out to preserve the color of some products and to roast potato slices. Blanching tomatoes can easily remove them peel.

Before freezing vegetables and greens or a certain type of fruit, it is also desirable to try out them. This method of cooking will significantly slow down, and sometimes even completely halt the damaging effects of enzymes. At the same time, the color, aroma and structure of the product will remain.

What does it mean to blanch vegetables? This means placing them in a gauze pouch, a metal mesh or a colander. In this case, the products can be in a general form or pre-cut into pieces. How to blanch the fruit with this? The container in which the product is placed must be immersed in boiling water at a rate of 4 liters per 1 kg of vegetables. The process usually takes between two and five minutes. In order to observe the necessary temperature regime (from eighty-five to ninety degrees), water should be intensively heated.

Thus, blanching - is to treat whole fruits or their slices with hot water within the required time and in time to get the product. It is important to observe the measure. With prolonged blanching, the ingredients may fall apart, but with a short blanching, they can remain solid.

After the processing, vegetables and fruits should be immediately cooled. For this, ice water is used, into which a container with products is placed.

In order to prepare fruits or greens for blanching at home, certain utensils and tools are needed. You will need simple devices and devices.

Berries, as well as fruits have high acidity. That is why all inventory, dishes and knives should be made of a material resistant to organic acids. It can be stainless steel or wood, enameled containers or glass. Suitable dishes are tinned or aluminum. In the case when instruments that are unstable to the action of acids are used, the finished products often acquire an extraneous smell and taste. The color becomes inked.

It is better to heat water in an enamel bucket or pan. Blanch the fruit preferably in a metal net basket made of stainless steel. Instead of a grid, a gauze pouch can be used.

Before blanching the fruit should be thoroughly washed. Their seeds and stems are removed. After peeling, the vegetables are cut as they are used in the future.

Put in boiling water should not be more than half a kilogram of fruit at a time. A pan or a bucket is covered with a lid and the right time is counted. For each vegetable there is a period of blanching. It has three minutes for a color crop, five for a whole carrot, four for aubergine, two for squash, and so on. After cooling, the products are transferred to plastic bags or special storage containers and placed in a freezer.